


Today is New

by Papillonae



Series: LietPol Week (2018) [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nature, Panic Attacks, Reminiscing, Thinking, Walks In The Woods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 23:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14271873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papillonae/pseuds/Papillonae
Summary: Lithuania takes a walk in the woods and reflects on the nature of the Nations - of his own immortality, of life, of changes - and of his relationship with Poland.Written for LietPol Week, Day 6: Nature.





	Today is New

It’s early in the morning, and Lithuania is walking along a forest path. A warm vapor escapes his lips in the February chill, and he balls up his hands in the pockets of his trench coat.

He likes to go on walks in the quietness of nature when his mind begins buzzing - right before his thoughts eventually fixate on one thing. He stops. He breathes deeply. He reminds himself,  _today is new._

During those times, Lithuania used to reach for his lighter and a pack of cigarettes (a habit Poland had been getting him out of, with mixed results). These days, he does fine with the old stimulants he used to have as a child: smooth stones, prime for skipping, that he traces with his fingers like a good luck charm as they sit at the bottom of his coat pocket. They remind him to stay grounded and steady against the winds of change.

 _Change_ … what a heavy word for a nation!

He mulls the idea over as he passes underneath the canopy of the forest, sunlight spilling through and leaving oblong spotlights in the path.

Lithuania was always trying to stop overthinking his own nature of being a nation. His people are going to be celebrating his centennial anniversary of independence, and he can hardly believe it himself. All the things he has seen, everything he has been through, in one hundred years… and it’s passed him, almost like the blink of an eye.

In hindsight, there was no way of knowing that his independence would have been on and off, even after many centuries of strife and fighting to be seen as his own. He’d seen so much bloodshed… and the pain…  _oh_ , the pain… the burning, the suffocating, the crack of the whip, the unfathomable, deep heartbreak from betrayal you don’t  _ever_  recover from - all on the backdrop of the loud color of red, deep red, blood red,  _watching-you-red_ –

He stops.

_Breathe in, Lietuva. It all comes full circle._

_Breathe._

_Today is new._

He breathes in the wet, earthy smell of the woods. Lithuania remembers that he was okay in the end. He remembers and understands that change had happened -  _everything changes_. Because change is the law of nature.

A light wind rustles through the leaves of the trees, and it draws a calming smile from Lithuania as he continues on his way.

His train of thought meanders over and over again on the word  _change_. Lithuania knows that change is nature. He sees it at work: flowers bloom, thrive, produce fruit, and wither. Animals are born, live, produce life, and then die. 

And  _humans_ … well, humans have the capacity for  _so much more_  than just living and dying. He’s known Grand Dukes and Kings, soldiers and poets, all sorts of men and women and children, who have done more than just living and dying. He has seen how much a human can change over time; the kindest humans can grow cold, and the most bitterly chilled humans can be thawed.

Change is, arguably, the most powerful law of nature. And humans - extraordinary as they are - can  _make_ change happen. They can  _be_  change, and it’s something Lithuania has always found fascinating. It was their sense of mortality that drove them, the drive to leave some sort of mark on the world before they returned to the inevitable nothingness of death. It was poetic, and only a little bit sad.

Lithuania understands that he is not human: he understands that the law of change affects him directly through his people and the people of other nations. And though he will never die, (a fact he is certain of,) he has been so close to death before - as close as a nation could possibly get - that he still sometimes wonders…

He remembers the cold of the snow, and the war-torn weary of his body as he laid in a ditch, ready to accept the dark extinction that so many nations fight to avoid.

And then, he remembers: a hand reaching out to meet him as an equal…

The fork in the forest path is in sight. There are mushrooms and flowers dotting the forest floor and the wind picks up with the distinctly crisp smell of winter. Lithuania steps onto the eastern path in the forest and continues on.

Poland… had always been there, hadn’t he?

Poland, who had seemed collected and benevolent when they first met, only to reveal the truth of a more easy-going, energetic individual. He was very presumptuous, but well-intentioned.  _That_  was the Poland he met. And perhaps, Lithuania humored, he himself had always been a guarded individual: always alert, always cautious, always ready to draw back the arrow or take up the sword - to raise the gun...

But with Poland, something happened. He let his guard down. He began to laugh more. His shoulders tensed less.

Somewhere in the centuries of knowing Poland, Lithuania knew him by every contradiction: the shyness and the boldness, the bravery and the cowardice, the selflessness and the selfishness. He knew Poland to be a fool, and yet he also knew that Poland was far from foolish. Poland was strong, and yet…

_Breathe._

The air is frosty, and it almost hurts.

Lithuania did not think a nation could die. Yet, Poland had done it twice.

The first time he did, it was heart-rending. Lithuania had been on the fringes of fading before, but when it happened to Poland, it was nothing nearly as quiet as dying in a snowbank - it was a  _ripping -_  a hasty three-way tug, a division among other nations. The act itself was soundless, but the sight of it… the lingering cries of his people, scattered…

_Breathe,_

Poland had changed from that. He clung harder, tighter, to the point of suffocation. He was through with being selfless then; now everything was for protecting  _himself_  and putting his  _own_  interests before all else. In hindsight, Lithuania doesn’t blame him for wanting another Commonwealth. After all, those were the days when Poland had been absolutely overflowing with confidence: he remembers the way Poland rode astride his horse in the open grasslands with wild exhilaration, just as the way he rode into battle - tall wings and glinting armor - with the sword extended as he let out a battle cry…

Lithuania admits he also missed his own strength and confidence from those times. But - he had craved his independence more. He longed to reconnect with his  _own_ people and his  _own_ land, his _own heart_.

He and Poland did not speak with words of diplomacy then. They spoke with  _armies_. With the taking of land, and the stubbornness to relinquish it.

Then Poland’s second death happened.

It happened in much the same way, only it was accompanied by the flash of bombs, the thunder of gunfire, the agony of billions - all at once -  _screaming!_ It was so, so  _loud_ …

_Breathe,_

Lithuania never heard screams like that… never heard  _Poland_  scream like that…

_Breathe,_

He still wakes with a start in the middle of the night and gropes blindly for Poland in the bed beside him - he has to touch him, has to  _know_  he isn’t going to fade again...

He needs to make absolutely sure that neither of them will ever truly die...

_Breathe…_

But… death is nature, right?

Lithuania knows he shouldn’t fear death. He doesn’t fear it for himself. He is a nation. He cannot -  _will not_  - die. But still…

_Today is new._

He begins to jog off the forest path, then escalates to a sprint out of the woods, until he slowly walks down a hill several blocks away. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten there so quickly. He can see his house cresting up around the corner. Poland was no doubt still asleep in his bed, but at least Lithuania had already made up the coffee for them both.

Strange, how he’s still naturally drawn to him in this way…

Lithuania feels the smoothness of the stones in his pocket, and he knows that he’s okay. Everything’s okay.  _Today is new._

Poland had been everything to him: an acquaintance, a friend, a lover, a foe, an enemy. They vacillated in-between all of these things, neither of them willing to cling to one.

Lithuania thinks more on it, and laughs. He may not remember every detail - just as his historians may not have recorded it well - but he still remembers how Poland makes him  _feel_.

In that moment, after a hundred years - after countless centuries - Lithuania realizes he might be more human than he first thought.

_Breathe._

He’s at his front door now, opening it. Poland is standing right there at the threshold, ready to head out. The worry is chased away when he sees Lithuania there, and he smiles (it’s a genuine smile, and Lithuania notices.)

He’s pulled into a hug. It’s the hard kind of hug that takes the air from your lungs and makes you hug back while you catch your breath. After so much mindful breathing, Lithuania decides he doesn’t mind the reflexive breath.

Change is the strongest law of nature. He and Poland have endured centuries worth of change. But even still, Poland’s presence - and the way Lithuania is reminded of and somehow  _comforted_  by that presence - has been a constant.

 _Today is new_.

But his feelings are still the same as before.


End file.
